Parties in the Petrograd District Council Elections

Published:PravdaNo. 64, June 6 (May 24), 1917.

      Published according to the text inPravda.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages506-511.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

Thelists of candidates for members of the district councils
      have been published (in a free supplement toVedomosti
      Obshehestvennovo Gradonachalstvafor
May 17).[2]Unfortunately,
      information is given only for ten districts. Nevertheless, we
      have a very clear and striking picture ofparty
      alignments, a picture that deserves close study on account
      of its electioneering value and the light it throws on theclassties of the different parties.

Partisanship,as we know, is both a condition for and index of
      political development. The more politically developed and
      enlightened the given population or given class is, the higher,
      as a general rule, is its party organisation. This rule is borne
      out by the experience of all civilised countries. From the point
      of view of the class struggle that is obviously how it should
      be. Non-partisanship or insufficient party crystallisation and
      party organisation implies at best class instability (at worst,
      this deficiency signifies deception of the masses by political
      charlatans a thing that is only too well known in parliamentary
      countries).

What,then, do the published lists of candidates in Petrograd
      reveal to us in the matter of party alignments?

Altogether71 lists have been put forward in 10 districts. The
      first thing we notice is that they fall intofivemajor
      groups.

1.TheR.S.D.L.P.—theBolsheviks.Lists have been
      put forward in all 10 districts. Our Party has formed a bloc
      with two other groups—the Inter-District group and the
      internationalist Mensheviks. This bloc is strictly based on
      principles and is openly proclaimed in resolutions passed by
      ourParty’s Petrograd and All-Russia
      conferences.[1]The
      fundamental issue in contemporary political life both in
      Russia and the rest of the world is that of the struggle of
      proletarian internationalism against the chauvinism (or
      “defencism”) of the big and petty bourgeoisie. Our Party has
      publicly declared its determination to work for closer
      relations and unity among all internationalists (see the

      resolution of the All-Russia
	Conference on uniting the internationalists against the
	petty-bourgeois defencist bloc).

Theparty of the proletariat has taken a clear, open and honest
      stand on the issues involved in the elections.

2.Ano less clear class physiognomy is shown by the party of
         “people’s freedom”, namely, the Cadets, actually the party of
         the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. They, too, have put
         forward 10 party lists in all 10 districts. As we know,allthe parties of the landowners and capitalists
         are nowsupportingthe Cadets, but for the time
         being they do soon the quiet.

3.Thirdas regards clearly defined party alignment comes the
         new-fledged Radical-Democratic Party, which has put forward
         its lists in only 6 out of the 10 districts. This unknown
         party is obviously another capitalist party which hopes to
         “pull” the votes of the men in the street by non-committal
         promises—something in the nature of Cadets in disguise.

4.Fourthcomes a group that has put up17lists in 9
         districts—a motley assortment of Narodniks (Trudoviks,
         Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Popular Socialists) and
         Mensheviks with the addition of the notoriousYedinstvo
         groupin varied
combinations.[3]

Aregular petty-bourgeois hodge-podge and petty-bourgeois lack
      of principles!Not oneof these groups and parties has
      dared to come out in advance with an open statement of
      principles in support of their decision to work for closer
      relations and unity. They have been swept along by events, and
      are trailing after the chauvinists. They have all fallen into
      the same mire and are floundering in it like the true
      philistines they are. They are trying to worm themselves into
      each district in every way they can. If it can’t be done by hook
      it will have to be done by crook—that is their motto.

Ifthey are all of one mind on defencism or on supporting the
      coalition cabinet, then why don’t they join forces to fight the
      elections in a united, open, political bloc recognising a set of
      definite principles?

Thewhole trouble is that the petty bourgeoisie, that is to say,
      the Narodniks and Mensheviks, lack principles and the spirit of
      party. They are all defencists and ministerialists. Yet they do
      not trust one another. In one district the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries run independently, in another they
      make common cause with the Popular Socialists and the Trudoviks
      (with people who approve of compensation for the landowners!
      With parties whom the S.R.s Vikhlayev, Chernov and Co. in
      1906–07openlyaccused of worshipping at the shrine ofpoprietaryinstincts!). More often than not they make
      common cause with the Mensheviks, sometimes withYedinstvo, that very sameYedinstvoof whichDyelo Narodawrites in either a hostile or contemptuous
      tone.

Nevermind! The man in the street will swallow anything! The
      petty bourgeois does not bother his head about partyism or
      principles. In the newspaper “we” are againstYedinstvo, but in order to get into the District
      Councils “we” areforit....

Exactlylike the Mensheviks. They too, in their paper, are
      againstYedinstvo, and at theirAll-Russia
conference[4]they greeted the notorious Deutsch with shouts of
      disapproval—a fact of whichYedinstvocomplained
      openly. Never mind, the man in the street has a short memory. We
      shall act in the man-in-the-street way! “In principle” we are
      against the Deutsches and the Jordanskys, we are ashamed of them
      in front of the workers, but when it comes to getting a
      political berth for ourselves we don’t mind running with these
      gentlemen on the same tickets!

Letall the class-conscious workers know, and let them spread
      the news about it among the working-class masses, that the bloc
      of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and all the Narodniks with the
      Mensheviks is a bloc of people who are trying to sneak in theYedinstvoheroes, a bloc ofpeople who are ashamed
      of their allies.

Intwo districts, Kazansky and Spassky, there are 110 Mensheviks
      or S.R.s at all. Apparently they haveconcealedtheir
      identity in the lists of the District Soviets, i.e., in thelists ofnon-partycandidates (in each district the
      number of candidates is incomplete—38 and 28 respectively
      against 54 and 44 of the Cadet Party and 43 and 46 of our
      Party). In two districts, therefore, the petty-bourgeois parties
      found even their motley semi-partyism too much for them, and
      landed for good and all in the mire of non-partyism—“who
      cares for parties, the thing is to get elected!” That, always
      and everywhere, has been the motto of bourgeois
      parliamentarians.

5.Inthe fifth group non-partisanship reigns
    supreme. They have 28 lists in 10 districts, and most of these
    groups exist in one district only. This is philistinism at its
    local narrowest. And what a mixed crowd they are! We have here a
    “House Management”, a “Group of Employees in Educational
    Institutions”, an “Honesty, Accountancy, and Fairness Group”
    (believe it or not...) and a group of “Democratic Republicans and
    Socialist Functionaries Nominated by  Non-Party Toilers,
    Republican Democrats, Working in the House Committees”....

Comradeworkers! Let us all get down to work, canvassing all the
      poorest homes, awakening and enlightening the domestic servants,
      the most backward workers, etc., etc. Let us campaign against
      the capitalists and the Cadets, disguised as “Radical
      Democrats”, who hide behind the Cadets’ backs. Let us campaign
      against the petty-bourgeois defencist mire of the Narodniks and
      Mensheviks, against their bloc, which stands for no parties and
      no principles, against their attempts to sneak into their joint
      lists the Trudoviks, the advocates of compensation, and the
      heroes of Plekhanov’sYedinstvowith whom even such
      ministerial papers asDyelo NarodaandRabochaya
      Gazetaare ashamed to be seen in the same company!

[1]Seepp. 159–60 and 294

[See Draft Resolution on
the Attitude Towards the Parties of the SRs, Mensheviks, “Non-Faction”
SDs and others]

of this volume.—Ed.

[2][PLACEHOLDER.]

[3][PLACEHOLDER.]

[4][PLACEHOLDER.]